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Saturday, November 21, 2009

Take The Police and Toots and The Maytals and you get Sean Bones and his reggae-infused, indie pop, debut album `Rings`. Whether it`s the "Skipping on, Skipping on" of `Easy Street` or the "You took me to another place" of `Cry Cry Cry`, this album reeks of good times and fun. Sean has crafted an album of great reggae music and fun pop lyrics. `Coco` and `Visions` had me feeling The Specials influence while `Act So Casual` has a more worldly sound with the addition of some great flute and organ action. Sean was also able to enlist the help of pal Norah Jones on the relaxed `Turn Them`. This is a great end-of-summer album that makes you feel all warm and fuzzy. It`s got great music and fun lyrics, what more do you need? Time to put this on repeat and go to the pool before it closes.

The Lions Constellation, who are based out of Spain, pick up right where The Jesus and Mary Chain and My Bloody Valentine left off with their new album, `Flashing Lights`. `Kiss Me` begins the album with the JAMC fuzz and dream-pop feel you know and love. `Butterflies and Flowers` continues the shoegaze revival sounding more like the The Soup Dragons while `Nothing to be Done` is more Ride, circa `Dawn Patrol`. The rest of the album has plenty of feedback and distortion as well as sweet and catchy lyrics like "I don`t know why / when I look at your face my heart is blue / I can understand, I try to be strong/ but I`m still in love with you" from `Where did you go`. `She`s My Heroine` is 7 minutes of spaced out psychedelic stoner fuzz that will possible melt your brain (hands down one of my favorite tracks on the album). I have never been this excited about reviving a style or trend but this disc hasn`t left my CD player since I got it. Honestly the best new album (of older sounding tunes) I`ve heard in ages. Get this now! You`ll thank me for it. I for one welcome our new shoegaze overlords.

As soon as the samples started in the first track, `Stand By for Mind Control`, I knew I was in for something a little different and a little special. `Pink Fuzz!` is full of lush synths swells, filter sweeps and random samples from start to finish. A few of the stand out tracks are `I hope I Die in the Arms of the Girl I Love` (very dreamy with a funky break beat),` Pink Fuzz!` (which includes some cheeky x-rated sample goodness), `God Can`t Come to the Phone Right Now` (I could see this track being played in Monty Python`s version of Heaven from `The Meaning Of Life`) and `The Hippies and the Beats` (great horn work and to reply to a sample used, "Yes, I can dig it!"). Any one of these tunes could be compared with early Air or Groove Armada. Solid stuff.

The album really has a warm and fuzzy feeling to it. It`s a perfect soundtrack for those long Sunday drives to nowhere, some deep reflection or a little mood music to help you with the ladies (nudge, nudge, wink, wink). My only real criticism would be some of the synths sounded very similar throughout the album. Even so, `Pink Fuzz!` is an impressive debut album that has me eagerly awaiting The Protagonist!`s next outing.

The Los Angeles Italo-disco trio channel ABBA and the 70`s (while still sounding fresh) with their new release `Expressions`. The album sounds like a best of collection from a band you`ve loved for years. Whether it`s the surfer guitars on `Thousand Crazy Nights` or the vocal wail at the beginging of ABBA inspired `I walk Alone`, you get a deja vu feeling like you grew up listening to this album but forgot about it and just found it again. Within seconds I found myself tapping my feet, knoding my head and belting out the chorus like I was a background singer. "Light of Love` makes you think someone dusted of a lost b-side to The Dixie Cups hit single `Going to the Chapel` while `Love, Violent Love` makes you think of Neil Diamond and sequined jump suits (which may or may not be a bad thing). `Warm in The Shadows` is a bizarro version of Blondie`s `Atomic` while ` Goodbye Everybody` ends the album on a very folk flavored, James Taylor vibe (think - "I`d like to buy the world a coke"). This is a very catchy, extremely fun album from a band that isn`t afraid to wear their influences on their sleeves.

DJ Yoda, turntable master known for his earlier `Cut n` Paste` releases, has released his newest in the `Cut n` Paste` series `The Thirties Edition`. DJ Yoda seamlessly puts breakbeats, drum n bass and scratches underneath these classic songs and movie samples and has created a mix that is entertaining from start to finish.

The album is full of sampled tunes such as `Vera Ward Hall`s Trouble So Hard` and `Sometimes` by Bessie Jones (Moby used both on Natural Blues and Honey respectively), Moondog’s ‘Lament 1, Bird’s Lament’ (the original sample from Mr Scruff’s ‘Get a Move On’) as well as Thelonious Monk’s ‘Black and Tan Fantasy’ (Wu-Tang Clan`s ‘Shame On A Nigga’ sampled this). The album includes tracks from Harry McClintock, Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, Cab Calloway and many more.

This is not as engaging as some of his earlier mixes (like How to Cut and Paste Mix Tape Vol.2 and FabricLive 39) due to the fact that he plays it safe with a lot of the tunes and music he uses to throw underneath the tracks. That said, this is still a great addition to an already great series (I prefer this mix to the Country & Western Edition) . DJ Yoda does it again. Can you dig it?7 out of 10

Since seeing her act as the rock star lead singer in `Strange Days`, I knew Juliette Lewis had the ability to rock my socks off. After four years, two full-length albums and countless tours, now she is back with her new solo project sans The Licks (good thing I bought more socks!). This album, produced by Omar Rodriguez-Lopez of The Mars Volta, easily shifts from Gossip inspired punk of `All Is For Good` to the Bloc Party, rock heavy feel of `Fantasy Bar` and the avant-garde style of `Female Persecution`.

`Terra Incognitea` has a very Janis Joplin-flavoured track in `Hard Lovin` Woman` and even a love song, `Romeo`, which has one of the catchiest hooks I`ve heard in years, "You and I underneath the blue light, Always and forever / This love we steal, Feels so real, Always and forever / I keep you inside, Something to remember." It nice to see that Juliette likes to push herself and her music and the variety of vocal / musical styles she uses throughout the album are impressive. It may have taken her a while but Juliette has finally found herself and, in the process, made a tremendously good record (that rocks!).

It seems that Italo-disco is making a comeback this year and at the forefront is Sally Shapiro with her album `My Guilty Pleasure`. Filled with lush ambient beds the album starts off with `Swimming Through The Blue Lagoon` before going to the "sure to be club hit" `Looking At The Stars`, `My Fantasy` and Moonlight Dance`. `Save Your Love`, the high point of the album, is crafted with 80`s era synths and pop melodies (think Depeche Mode or New Order) while `Let It Show` has an almost Royksopp feel to it. The album comes close to the edge of being cheese but manages to stay on the right side of the fence, for the most part. Sally Shapiro does Synth/Dream Pop very well. I just hope she tries to expand the formula on future albums. In the meantime, I am really looking forward to the inevitable remixes to add some more umph to the album.

Sounding more like Alanis or Dido (which, in this case, is a bad thing), Imogen Heap follows up her acclaimed 2005 album ` Speak For Yourself` with the much anticipated `Ellipse`. Fans of Imogen will probably take to it effortlessly, but those taking a nonpartisan stance may be disappointed with this lacklustre follow up to what is largely considered a fantastic album.

Her lyrical and vocal talent is still clearly on display and is still the driving force to the album. The problem comes with the over-produced / commercial sound it has as a whole. Instead of making an record that makes Imogen happy, it seems she has tried to make an album that will make her fans happy (she even had them help write some of the tracks via Twitter). This is may be good for her wallet as they will most likely flock to pick it up, but it is a bad thing for people who appreciated the work that went into the innovative last album.

Certain tracks like `Aha`, `2-1` and `Half Life` hint at the older Imogen with intriguing production, instruments and vocal turns. Then you have other tracks that have her channeling Dido (`Swoon` and `Wait it out`) and Alanis (`Earth` and `Bad Body Double`) and really do a disservice to a talented artist (seriously...`Bad Body Double` is just bad, maybe the fans wrote that one in it`s entirety).

Imogen`s interaction with her fan base is commendable, but hopefully she will soon get back to making thought provoking and genre pushing music and not copping out to make her newly acquired tween fan base happy. The album is more miss than hit but Imogen is still a vibrant and talented artist who can blow you away when she puts her mind to it. Here`s hoping she feels like it soon!

Thursday, November 19, 2009

I went to see Pretty Lights (see my previous post) last night at the 930 club in Washington DC and Gramatik opened for him. I am a HUGE fan of Gramatik and he recently did this remix of Muse - Knights Of Cydonia which he closed his set with last night...the club went crazy.

Friday, November 13, 2009

Soundhog, a bootleg legend in my book, has a new long mix and it's brilliant.

In his own words...

"Well, what the fuck happened here, then?

Good question. How anyone can spend three and a half years putting together a simple mix of old records? Well, it's not quite that simple, as I hope you'd expect from my previous stuff. The amount of time I actually spent working on RsH7 since April 2006 could be compressed down into a few weeks, perhaps. I probably spent twenty times as long staring at blank sections of an Ableton project, wondering what the hell to do next. This would usually turn out to be deleting whatever I'd done previously. People forget about you when you go quiet, if indeed they knew about you at all. I withdrew from the battered remains of the bootleg scene as it got swallowed up by the m@$h up monster. I stopped looking at certain internet forums for the sake of my blood pressure. Often there would be gaps of three, four or five months in between opening and closing the mix project (usually with no results anyway). I reeled in horror as a Kid Rock record hit the charts which featured a combination of tracks I'd put into the mix a few months previously. Tunes which were box fresh when I decided to work with them turned into golden oldies. One thought would continually buzz around my head as I looked at the screen: "What's the bloody point?"

I've still not answered that question.

Two and a half years later, I managed to get an hour's worth of audio together, which was broadcast on a friend's radio show (to no reaction, save for a select few mates) just before Xmas 2008. I wasn't happy with it, but I'd had a deadline and it was finished off in a drunken rush the in the early hours of d-day. A further 10 months passed before I could stand to revisit the thing, replace the bits that had nagged me and get it to the state it's in now, which still isn't perfect and I know I'll regret bits of it as soon as it gets into the wild. Ah, well. Too bloody late now, eh?

**Dull technical bollocks alert**

The mix contains 4,130 individual samples/clips spread over seven audio tracks, with a large number of effects and EQs running in real time. All audio manipulation is done within Ableton Live 5 with nothing (apart from a few snippets of speech and the odd cymbal sample) prepared 'offline', if that's the right term to use. Every track is chopped up and processed as required within the single project file. The upshot of this is nearly 3.5gb of audio 'raw material' to deal with. My computer is over 8 years old, with a 1.4GHz P4 processor and 512mb of RAM. To say it was "struggling to cope" with all of this activity is quite an understatement. By the final stages, any modification to any part of the project (moving a sample, changing a volume setting, altering an effect's automation etc.) would result in four or five minutes worth of hard disk churning, and very often a total system crash. As for processor usage, don't even go there. I doubt any of this ridiculous detail will be apparent in the final result, but perhaps that's a good thing. They always say a good edit is one that nobody hears. How apt...

So, here it is, then. My last will and testament, and all that. I'm way beyond being objective about the result. I hope that you enjoy it as much as I didn't. The game's very much over."

Sunday, November 08, 2009

Boys Noize is the moniker of Alexander Ridha, a German electro producer and DJ. It is also the name of Ridha’s label, Boysnoize records, which he set up in 2005. He is also a prolific remixer whose credits include well-known acts such as Bloc Party, Depeche Mode, Feist, and Justice.

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